


Thirty Thousand Feet

by Sophia_Bee



Series: X-men Canon Compliant Fics [4]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2469248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Bee/pseuds/Sophia_Bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Cuba, before the bullet curves, Erik visits Charles one night because he wants to share something with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirty Thousand Feet

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason I'm wanting to write sad canon right now.
> 
> (The title comes from Underground's Mmm..Skyscraper I Love You off Dubnobasswithmyheadman, and if you love EDM and don't know this album, go get the 2014 rerelease now.)

Sometime between their parting on the beach and the brains of the president of the United States being splattered all over the back of a car, Erik comes to him.

Charles wakes to find him sitting at the end of his bed, watching him sleep, and the first words out of his mouth are, spitting and angry.

"fuck you Erik".

He’s dreamed of those words and now that he can finally say them, he lets them rush forth in with the most venom he can muster, taking great pleasure in the little flinch they produce.

This is before a lot of other things. Before the serum, before Charles gives up everything just to walk, before he finally decides that the only way he can actually sleep is to shut out all the voices that had become unbearable.

It’s after many things too. After too many promises and too much hope, and after the helmet went on and Erik left him wounded and bruised on the beach. It’s strangely in between everything, a small singular moment that exist in neither the before or the after.

Erik frowns at Charles, as if he wants to protest just a little bit at the anger being thrown at him, because it's human nature to not want to face your transgressions and Erik is human after all. He doesn’t say anything, just sits there, watching, and that’s when Charles notices that he’s not wearing the helmet. He feels a small sense of relief, but he still does not reach out and touch the other man's mind. After all, he had promised.

Erik has chosen to wear the cape and that ridiculous outfit, and briefly Charles is grateful that he never adopted any over-the-top garb, or even an overblown name, that he has always remained the Professor, wise, aloof, no cape or gloves or anything to draw attention to himself.

If he didn’t hate Erik so much, he would point out the silly cape and ask him why all of this pomp and circumstance is necessary, telling him that he can be just as much of an asshole if he just wears the turtlenecks and dress pants he seems so fond of. It won’t make the world hate him any less. Charles actually does point this out sometime later in the evening, before Erik reveals what he’s actually come for, and Erik just responds saying that the cape keeps him warm.

Erik sighs and rolls his eyes at Charles, who sits in bed, glaring at him, wishing that his mutation might include the ability to throw daggers with his eyes, and Erik says dryly that he was hoping they could let bygones be bygones. Ha. Bygones, Charles wants to snort, cannot be bygones, because what Erik is really asking is whether or not they can pretend that they never happened. The fact that Charles can’t sleep some nights because his dreams of Erik’s fingers on his skin are so vivid, that he misses Erik every single day, the fact that he cannot fucking WALK, are things that he cannot pretend didn’t happen.

They fight. It's not loud, they do not yell, but the tension in the air is thick and choking and it's all Charles can do not to break down sobbing under the weight of it. Erik’s eyes spark with anger as he tells Charles that they were never meant to last anyway and there are some things in this world that are bigger than two people who care for each other.

“Loved each other,” Charles corrects Erik. “We loved each other. At least say what it is. Don’t pretend that for a brief time we didn’t mean everything under the sun and stars to each other. Don’t try to tell me this was your plan all along, Erik Lehnsherr. I saw the way you looked at me. I know the truth.”

And Erik is wrong because there is nothing bigger in the world than love. He just can't see it. Erik is silent. Charles sighs because once again they have reached an impasse.

"So, why are you here," Charles asks quietly after what feels like a long time. Erik shrugs as if his reasoning for appearing in Charles bedroom in the darkness of night no longer matters, then he changes the subject.

"Do you miss walking?"

Charles can't breathe. Erik's eyes are shining with tears. There is no way he can answer this question.

"You have no right," Charles hisses at the man sitting on the end if his bed who is looking like he wants to beg for absolution, something Charles will not give him easily. Erik will have to live with what he's done.

"I just...I just want to know." Erik says softly. He is hurting and Charles can feel it radiating off him in waves, and god help him, he wants to take this rightful guilt away from this man because after everything that's happened, he loves him enough that it wouldn't take much to tip Charles into forgiveness.

Charles wants this to be over. He wants to go back to the life he'd been left with after Cuba, where he is building his school and pretending everything is fine and that he's happy being alone. He wants Erik to leave him again so he can mourn. Again and again and again.

"What do you want, Erik," Charles finally sighs, feeling exhausted down to his very core.

"Not much, actually," Erik laughs dryly and it's clear thus visit hasn't gone as he expected, but how else would it go? "I came because I wanted to show you something."

"Show me something?" Charles says blankly. This was not about reconciliation or forgiveness but an opportunity for show and tell? He feels confused, but Erik Lehnsherr is a very confusing man.

"Yes," Erik says softly, holding his hand out, offering it to Charles. "I want to show you something, share it with you. Would you come with me?"

Charles thinks about all that lies between them. The destiny of mutant-kind. Their clashing ideals. There is a chasm between them that has grown wider and increasingly impassible. But here is Erik, half reclined on Charles' bed, offering his hand, coming to Charles because he'd thought of something he wanted to share, and in a way he feels closer to Erik than he ever has before.

"Yes."

Erik smiles and Charles aches at the joy it contains.

"Let me get my chair," Charles starts to push himself up, preparing to swing his flaccid legs towards the side of the bed, to slide himself into the sleek metal chair that allows him to make his way around the mansion, but Erik puts up a hand and stays him then rolls off the bed and goes to rummage in Charles' drawers, then closet. When he returns to stand at the side of the bed he hands Charles a bulky wool cardigan and one of his old wool coats.

"No chair," Erik rumbles, "I'll carry you. Now, put these on. Over your pajamas is fine."

Charles does as he's been instructed and when he's done Erik leans down and rolls a pair of thick wool socks over each of Charles' feet, giving each one a pat when he's done, and the whole thing is strangely intimate and maybe even loving. If things were different maybe Erik would have placed salty tear-filled kisses up Charles' unfeeling legs, asking for forgiveness with each soft touch of his lips.

"I don't want your toes to get cold."

"I can't feel my feet," Charles reminds Erik.

"No matter." Erik says, his voice soft with regret.

Erik scoops Charles into his arms and Charles winds his arms around Erik's neck, holding on, then he dares rest his head on Erik's chest and he heart thumping away. He feels warm and cared for and for just this moment there is nothing hanging between them, and it's so beautiful it hurts. Charles' eyes are wet, and how could everything feel okay right now and impossible just minutes ago.

Erick walks to the window that rises from almost the floor to just below the ceiling and he unlatches it the steps out into the darkness. Instead of dropping towards the ground, they float up, towards the crescent moon that is hanging in the sky. Charles feels the cool night air on his face and he smiles.

“You’re getting very good at this,” he says, glancing up at Erik’s face that’s hidden in the darkness. He remembers the first time Erik used his powers to levitate out of the submarine and down to the beach, but this is even more masterful, more amazing.

“I’ve been practicing.”

“I can see,”

They move faster, air rushing past them. Charles shivers and now he understands why Erik had said his cape keeps him warm. Everything is dark around them, except for tiny cars making their way on small highways with their headlights, the occasional town, until Charles sees that the entire edge of the horizon is lit up.

New York City.

The city sucks away the darkness with its lights, tall skyscrapers brilliant against the night sky, shining and garish and oh, so beautiful. Charles gasps.

“Oh, Erik,”

“This is what I wanted to share.”

When they reach the city, Erik starts to climb higher and higher, until Charles is sure they are high enough for the air to be thin and he can see the entire city stretched out under him, a maze of lights, blazing, almost like a river of fire. Then Erik descends,slowly, and the night is clear so nothing obstructs the beauty before him, and Charles wants to write endless poems about how wonderful this moment is.

They end up floating just above some of the tallest skyscrapers, surrounded by their lights, and if someone down below happened to look up at that moment they would see a man floating in the air, gently cradling another man, but Charles and Erik would not meet the eyes of that interloper because all they can see is each other.

“This is beautiful,” Charles says softly, looking up into Erik’s face, and if he didn’t have his arms wound around the other man’s neck, holding tightly to keep himself stable, he would have taken the liberty to trace that strong jawline, sweep a thumb over Erik’s thin bottom lip.

Erik starts to spin slowly, a smooth and perfect pirouette, and it’s almost like they’re dancing. His cape spreads out behind him, and Charles thinks that the vain bastard isn’t just trying to keep warm, that cape is truly dramatic when unfurled behind the great Magneto, and for a moment it doesn’t seem entirely useless. It actually seems magical.

“I love you, Charles,” Erik says softly, as if those words matter, “I always will.” Charles knows this. Ultimately Erik is a little boy who just wants to be loved and his love for Charles is true and pure. It’s the thing that haunts Charles the most. He could accept their situation much more easily if he thought Erik was just using him as entertainment, but he knows it’s not true. He wants to ask Erik why loving him isn’t enough, but he can’t, mostly because the answer will be the same circular argument they get stuck in again and again.

Instead Charles tilts his head up and presses his lips lightly to Erik’s chin, causing Erik to startle a little, then lean down and capture Charles’s mouth in a deep and longing kiss.

Erik takes him back to the mansion and Charles is content, nestled against the man he will never be able to stop loving, and he finds himself half awake and half asleep, then they are floating back through his bedroom window and Erik is placing him gently on his bed.

“Until next time, my love,” Erik whispers, and Charles mumbles his name and almost asks him to stay, but he doesn’t, because Erik has done the entirely idiotic thing of infusing Charles with hope, and hope is Charles' greatest weakness. Still, it's there now, lurking and maybe they can actually have a next time.

Not long after that night, the one where Erik swept Charles up to the heavens and they danced on air, the bullet will curve, and the First Lady will become a widow, and the bullet. Curved. Charles can't let go of this fact or how far Erik is apparently willing to go. Moira will tell him that Erik is in custody and Charles will drop the phone and Hank carries him to bed that night because Charles realizes that the chasm between himself and Erik has just become officially uncrossable, and this fact is entirely unbearable.

All that is left is anger, and with all that anger, Charles has let go of any chance he has for peace.

~fin~


End file.
